For Me
by MBooker
Summary: He changed for her… but I had to change for me.


**Title:** _For Me_

**Author's Note**: _This story was inspired by **Cath1's For Her** and is a "part 2" of sorts of that story. Thank you **Cath1** for writing it and allowing me to expand upon it. **For Me** was written with **Joe's Girl** in mind… I hope you both like it._

**Summary**: _He changed for her… but I had to change for me._

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"Since you keeping turning me down for a date, why don't we meet at the park Sunday" Jake had said to me Thursday night when he came into the coffee shop.

He had been a regular for the last 3 years or so and had, about a year ago started asking me out. Naturally, I said _no _because men were the furthest thing from my mind. The first few times I turned him down I was polite but he continued asking so I tried being short with him. When that didn't work, I was down right rude, but that didn't work either.

He was persistent and didn't take offense at my rudeness. He even told me once that he knew what I was doing and that I was wasting my time. He wasn't going stop asking me out until I went out with him at least once.

So, finally, I gave in and told him I'd meet him at the park and that it would count as the _one and only_ date we would go on.

My life has been so busy the last couple of years and I don't remember the last time I had time to sit and just think… and now, while I wait for Jake and our first and only date to commence I let my mind drift back…

Four years had passed since I made the most daring decision of my life. Four years had passed since _she_ walked into the coffee shop. Four years had passed since I was forced to take a long hard look in the mirror… at my self.

I did not like what I saw… a lonely, bitter, envious woman who was wasting away at the coffee shop, too afraid to reach out for her dreams… a woman who was dying bit by bit day by day, too afraid to hope in life because it only seemed to hand out disappointment.

That night as I looked into the mirror I cried … something I had not done in a long time. That night I threw myself a pity party… something I did quite often.

And then I did something that took me by surprise.

I forgave _him_… for not being my knight in shinning armor… for not rescuing me from my hellhole of a life… for loving _her _and not me…

I forgave _her… _for being beautiful… for being _his _wife again… for being the mother of _his _child… for being the keeper of _his _heart…

And then I forgave myself… for all the wrong choices I made in life… for wasting so much time in a loser job and on a loser boyfriend… for sleeping with _him _just to get back at that loser cheating boyfriend… for using _him _and allowing _him _to use me… for being bitter over losing something I never had…

I cried and I cried and when the morning came I still cried. But somewhere amidst the tears, I made a daring decision… I would reach for my dreams.

The morning after _she _came into the coffee shop, I went down to the university and took the first steps to enroll in school. And now, four years later, I am about to graduate with a BS in accounting, will be starting a new job and will begin my Masters program in the fall.

It was hard… working full time and going to school full time, but it was worth it… I was worth it.

I have learned and am still learning that I am worth it. I am worth all the hard work it has taken over these last four year. I'm learning that it's OK for even me to have my dreams come true.

I can have a career I love and maybe, just maybe one day in the distant future I _can _love and be loved by a good man.

Glancing down at my watch, I see that my date is late and for no reason that I can fathom I begin to wondered if my late date could be… but no he can't be because that part of the dream still frightens me a little.

I shake my head and push those thoughts far far away as I look up. Glancing around the park for my late date… I pause when… I see _him_… and then I see _her_.

_He_'s carrying a little girl, no doubt the protrusion I saw four years ago, on his shoulders… _she _has her arm linked with _his _and _she_'s again rubbing her protruding stomach… still so perfect, still so pretty and still so pregnant.

They are laughing… all three of them and it's obvious that _he _is happy, that _she _is happy, that _they _are happy with their life together… And I don't feel one ounce of envy.

I am happy… I am happy for them.

Tony Almeida and Michelle Dessler Almeida… I am happy for them.

Four years ago, if you had told me that I would say that, I would have told you that you had lost your damn mind. But four years later, I am a different woman. No longer am I that lonely, bitter, envious bitch.

I am a woman who is in control of her life. I am a woman who isn't so afraid to dream anymore. I am a woman who respects herself now. I am a woman who loves herself now. I am a woman who is happy now.

I see my late date making his way over to me… and I realize that I am a woman who has changed… and I changed for me… and maybe it's time to reach for that part of my dream that still frightens me a little.


End file.
